| 09/16/09 04:31 PM |
#22
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Henry Hamilton
OK, gang this is how I remember first grade at Oakmont School in the fall of 1957. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent. This may not be the way it happened, but I have been telling it this way for so long I can't stop.
I remember there being three classrooms of first graders in 1957. Mrs Luther's classroom was at the end of the first grade hall. Seems like they did a lot of art and drawing in her room. Mrs. Betty Loggins was next down the hall. I remember her class used the "Tip" first reader. The third classroom down the hall was mine. Mrs. Daisy Bell Winsted was her name.
Might not be true, but I remember her as being seven feet tall, if she was an inch. I remember her wearing out your back with a 12 inch ruler in the cafeteria if you were talking. I witnessed her break a yard stick over Gary Hassell's head when he marked in a workbook incorrectly. Charlie Bates was sitting right beside me. I was scared to death of her. I wet my pants cause I was afraid to ask to go to the bathroom. I didn't speak where a teacher could hear me for the first grading period. They must have thought I was a mute.
Mrs. Daisy Bell's class had the new basic reader called "We Look and See" with Dick, Jane, and Sally and the dog named Spot. I have that first grade reader in my hand as I type. Not a copy of it but the original with my name printed by Mrs. Daisy Bell's hand. Eve did student teaching years later under Sara Caudill and they found my very book. I remember us having two reading groups. I don't know how we were labeled back then, but little Henry was in the dumb group. It could have been because my teacher thought I couldn't talk.
Since my spoken words had been merely grunts and whispers, I earned a trip down the hall one day to see Ms. Katsenburger, the hearing and speech therapist for the school system. Guess I was her project. They planned to test me, but they didn't tell me that. Remember going down the hall, turning right at the cafeteria and down past Ms. Dunn's office. Just had to sneak a peek and look for that famous "electric paddle" that the upperclassmen had so dutifully warned us about. Didn't see any sign of it. Went into a small room that later on was a teacher's lounge. Ms. Katsenburger reminded me of Aunt Bea on Andy Griffith, salt and pepper hair in a bun low behind her head, striped gingham long dress, talking all the time like someone making announcements at Sunday school. She sat me down in a chair and showed me a bunch of flash cards with different animals and things on them. Not a word had been spoken by either of us when she came to a picture of a dog. Looked like Lassie. She slammed the card down hard on the desk in front of me and said real angry, "Tell me what this is!" The first words I uttered out loud to an adult at school was "Don't you know what that is." That made her mad and she hollered at me and sent me back to Ms. Daisy Bell. They seemed upset that I could talk.
Does anyone remember this mess like I do? Have I completely changed the facts? Does anyone remember the whole class going to Coleman's store on the corner of McLemore and College Streets to get a cold drink in a glass bottle for either a nickel or six cents? Remember sitting on the curb and finishing our drinks right there on the spot because we had returnable bottles and sure didn't want to pay a deposit, three cents as I remember. Did you have a Coca Cola, RC, 7Up, Nehi grape or orange or maybe a Brownie? Or how about going across the street to the Dairy Dip for a soft ice cream cone? Do you remember what was in the back of the Dairy Dip? Was it a skating rink?
Anyone remember what a big deal it was to clean your plate at lunch? Remember those fine government surplus lunches. I remember a bunch of days with rock hard white beans, stewed tomatoes, bad looking yeller cornbread, instant potatoes, slice of beet that made your whole plate look like a blood bath, turnip greens, and topped off with a boiled egg that looked closer to green than yellow. Did anyone besides me stuff all the left over food in your milk carton so it appeared that you cleaned your plate. When that loaded milk carton hit the bottom of that giant refrigerator box that the janitor was guarding, it sounded like a bomb going off. Best I remember you got a star or something for cleaning you plate. The school didn't want you to throw away food, especially milk, because the local farmers bought the leftovers to feed their hogs.
I think those lunches costs a dollar a week, twenty cents a day. I was better at math than reading. Didn't have to talk as much.
Does anyone remember the old soured milk garbage smell at the bus stop out back of the school?
I hope to have more thoughts later. Looking forward to Saturday.
Henry '69
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